The UK’s digital advertising market grew by 17.3 per cent to £10.3bn last year – but nearly all the extra money went to Google and Facebook

This means that £1.14bn, or 94 per cent, of the £1.217bn growth in the UK advertising market went to search engines and social media. Google and Facebook are reckoned to control about 90 per cent of each market, meaning the US giants accounted for the vast majority of the growth in UK online advertising.

The latest IAB figures, compiled by PWC, do not reveal how much internet advertising is being spent with the publishing industry.

But in 2015 news brands (which include national and regional newspapers) made £419m from digital advertising in the UK, according to the Advertising Association. The new figures from the IAB suggest this total will be at best flat year on year for 2016.